


A Liberating Melody

by artistocrazy



Series: AusHun Week 2018 [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Aushun Week 2018, F/M, Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15799344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistocrazy/pseuds/artistocrazy
Summary: During their first wedding anniversary with their borders officially opened to each other, Roderich finally has the leisure time to share his first major composition with Erzsebet.





	1. Indulgent Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the Music Prompt for Aushun Week 2018!  
> Please enjoy!

It was the first anniversary they could spend in years without having to sneak around. True, the border protections weren’t as strict in the last couple of years leading up to it, but Roderich and Erzsebet took very few chances in those days. The pair would meet as “strangers” on the streets of Vienna, enjoy a few stolen moments hidden away from the eyes of their governments, and go their own way as “strangers” again back to their respective homes. It was the easiest way to ensure Erzsebet’s safety while still seeing each other, as there was no way to know for sure if these leniencies meant greater change or were only temporary. As far as they were concerned each time was quite possibly their last together, so usually they weren’t one to fill their visits with chatter. While there was admittedly a thrill to meeting up in secret, they both recognized its drawbacks.

This year, neither of them were concerned about being seen. Roderich was even so bold as to agree to hold hands and steal a kiss or two in public! After a day spent picnicking by the Danube and exploring the amusements in the Prater, Roderich escorted Erzsebet back to their old house for a visit that wouldn’t be as indecent as the others. For a moment, he’d joked about carrying her over the threshold if he weren’t so winded; however, Erzsebet had beaten him to it. In an instant, she had him cradled in her arms as they headed toward the porch and through the door.

Erzsebet didn’t mind the quiet of the downtime. In fact, she found out quickly she missed many of the small, domestic things she couldn’t do much of in her little apartment. She missed opening the windows and feeling a breeze through the space. She missed dusting and glancing over all of the artwork, even if his portraits were all gone and were replaced by newer pieces. She found she even missed the smell of the wood furniture and the old plastering and the fresh flowers outside.

After a little while of situating her things in their old room for the evening, Erzsebet descended the stairs and felt the rosy glow in her cheeks upon hearing the keys ringing softly out in the distance. As she expected, Roderich was brushing his fingers over the grand piano and winding into the sound. Usually she could place what he’d played before without having to look at his sheet music, but it must have been a long time since last she heard him. She didn’t recognize the piece at all, although it didn’t stop her from seating herself on the sofa by the bookshelf to listen.

Upon hearing the squeak of the sofa spring and a contented sigh, Roderich ended whatever phrase he was working on and perked his eyes open. Seeing her contented in this way was something he still could barely believe he missed as much as he did.

“Do you have any requests for your special day?”

Erzsebet cracked a smile as she sauntered behind him. After smoothing her hands down his back, Erzsebet weaved her arms around him and applied a tender kiss to his cheek. “I was going to ask you the same about dinner tonight, but we don’t have to worry about cooking right away. God, it’s been so long since I’ve heard you play in this room.”

His stiff appearance had the tendency to melt in her touch, and the moment he felt her voice hum behind him, he leaned back and released his own contended sigh. Brushing his hand against her cheek and shyly returning the peck, he marveled at how he could be so lucky to have her around again.

In an instant, the idea flashed to his mind and he could think of no better time for it. Backing his face away, Roderich brushed a thumb on Erzsebet’s chin and hoped maybe the blush on her cheeks would be deeper than his own. “While I have you here, I… I’ve been meaning to show you something.”

Erzsebet released him, but kept her hands on his shoulders. Her voice piped up in curiosity. “What is it?”

While one hand reached to meet hers, the other ghosted over the keys – both small touches of confidence. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this to you, but I’ve, erm… well, you know I haven’t been crazy about much of the music being created in this century, na?”

“Oh,” Erzsebet snickered through a wry smirk, “so that _wasn’t_ you dancing to Falco or that Hasselhoff man on the radio by the Danube today?”

As shy as he appeared to be in regular conversation, Erzsebet knew getting a rise out of him was a sure-fire way to bring him out of his head. “A man has got to have some guilty pleasures, you know,” he sassed back.

She bit her lip to quiet a small snort at his expense. Still a proud, stubborn man with the stormy eyes and knit in his brow after all these years, but Erzsebet’s jests were now met with the playful sass he had acquired over centuries.

“Anyway,” he continued despite the gurgling feeling that threatened to silence him, “rather than complain, I have taken it upon myself to devote that creative energy to… to writing my own compositions.”

“Really!” The Hungarian exclaimed, somewhat bewildered. “I thought you’d already written some things.”

“Well, I would fool around with some ideas, but prior to-” he had to silence himself before going down that road. Moving forward they could feel free to discuss the details of their separation at an easily achievable nauseum, but they could save that for another evening. This day wasn’t meant to be soured with such things. “… you know. Before then I never had the compulsion to finish any of them, let alone jot them down on paper.”

Her joyous laughter rang out in the room again as she gushed, shaking his shoulders. “You wrote something! Show me! Show me, please!”

“Alright! Alright! Don’t rush me!” He tried placating her without letting his racing heart get the best of him.

Erzsebet bit her hand to keep from snickering at the poor, spastic thing as he pulled out a few pieces of paper from under his seat.

He tempered his voice again, looking between those sheets and at her wistfully. Roderich hoped the deep breath leaving him would help calm that hammering in his rib cage. “This … was the first I had completed… You’re the first person other than me to hear it.”

Erzsebet pulled up the little stool in the corner at sat with her head in her hands, clearly eager to hear his creation as she gushed. “Oooh! I’m honored! Oh, this is so exciting!”

Taking in another deep breath, Roderich knew he had to relax before he got to playing, but Erzsebet already gave him a natural high. He had to start with her; however, he wouldn’t scold her. That would be sort of a backhanded way to show her a song he wrote exclusively for her.

A nervous laugh bubbled up from him, and he took a moment to loosen his wrists again. “Sorry. I’m a little nervous.”

“Need a hand? Or two?” Erzsebet inched her way closer to him on the piano bench and held his hands. It was an old trick they’d done to prepare him to play way back when. Did it actually limber him up to play? Maybe not, but the way her thumbs repeatedly rolled over the little crevices in his palms had a way of soothing his nerves and touching him more than just physically.

With the added assurance from his muse, Roderich felt ready to start playing. Shifting his eyes yet again between her and the sheet music in front of him, he’d absentmindedly brought his hand to his face where she’d kissed him not so long ago and played the starting phrase. Soon, he was taken by the piece and she wondered why on Earth he even bothered to break out the sheet music if he was just going to close his eyes anyway.

At first, it wasn’t the most interesting composition, although Erzsebet didn’t expect a masterpiece. He’d been playing music for centuries, but writing and arranging his own was a different story. She closed her eyes and let her mind journey on the balance of those gentle chords, trying to match her breathing with his. Feeling reflective, she thought back to the tender moments they’d shared in this room, even before they had come to understand their feelings for each other…


	2. Humanity as a Maker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cue flashback*

“So you play things a certain way when you’re thinking of someone?” The servant still could not avoid prodding and analyzing people in the way she did before her fate in this house, but it was her way to relate to the world and, likewise, her way to build on a friendship. And if Erzsebet and Roderich were going to get along, it didn’t hurt to know more about him as a person.

The young master nodded matter-of-factly at her observation. “Or rather, I tend to shape a piece depending on what I’m mulling over. But, to answer that question, yes. I suppose it is a way I process things.”

“Is that why you play as much as you do?”

The young master looked sheepishly at his feet, weighing how smart it would be to reveal so much to someone he just started calling a friend not too long ago. Then again, how could he hope to be understood if he stayed hidden around someone he basically lived with? “It’s going to sound ridiculous-”

“I won’t laugh,” the servant assured him.

He looked at her with the focus of someone who could pierce anyone in his gaze with his eyes. However, the conviction behind such eyes wavered, and his voice followed suit. “Do you swear it?”

For added measure the servant held up her hand and crossed her heart, showing she meant business despite her smile. “On my honor.”

Roderich steeped his fingers for a moment and gently caressed the keys, observing their polish. Without any indication he would have otherwise done so, the boy swiveled on the bench to face her, practically inviting her to sit. Thinking it wise not to push for anything too intimate, Erzsebet decided it best to lean in as he spoke rather than seat herself beside him on the bench.

“You know how some people think and strategize by picturing formations or through using maps or such things? Well, I do so through music. I take in the sound before the content, and so to take in the content, I must muse over the presentation – what that pattern was…”

The sheepishness had found its way into his voice as he ran a hand through his hair. “It is my understanding that I tend to… react before understanding, na?”

Erzsebet pursed her lips and nodded her head. “To put it lightly.”

“And so, playing as I do, I listen for things I failed to hear before in attempting to reassess the moment. At least, this is how I have come to understand it.”

Erzsebet kept quiet and studied him, not noticing how her focused gaze could come off as somewhat judgmental.

Understanding by this point that trying to assert his rank over her was pointless, the young master felt himself shrink under her gaze. He shook his head and let out an exasperated groan. “Ach je, this sounds so much stranger in words. You poor thing. I must sound like a madman to you.”

Her voice was an unexpected comfort, in that there was no laughter or teasing air about it. It was simple in observation, but grand in empathy when matched serenely with those green eyes. “That’s not so mad as it is different. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone think that way before. It’s-”

“Crazy.”

“No,” she corrected him, downplaying the rise in her cheeks. “It’s fascinating… So it’s not just a leisure activity?”

“Well, it’s leisurely in that it helps me to relax and move past my reactions, but it does so much for me. Now, this I am sure will sound crazy, but… oh, maybe you’ve felt this way before, too. If anything, we have this experience in common… Music helps me to feel… human.”

Erzsebet’s eyes lit up on that last word. Rarely had he ever been so vulnerable with her to think to admit to such a strange whim. Most of their interactions had given Erzsebet the impression that Roderich was fully convinced of himself as a superior nation, far above that of a regular human or even above other nations despite his faults. Perhaps he didn’t understand what it really meant to be human, or Erzsebet had been exposed to more serfs and soldiers in her lifetime to think of other ways to be like humans. Who among them could claim either were experts on humanity?

“So do you not feel human any other time you’re working or fighting? Because more often than not most humans work and fight. You do realize the aristocracy are an exception, right?”

“Peasants enjoy music and art just as much as aristocrats. I would argue they do so even more for similar reasons.”

“Which are?”

He paused, searching again for the proper words. “When I am around music or when I am playing it, I feel… I feel larger than myself. Closer to myself, even. I am reminded of what lies beyond my understanding, beyond my words or my grasp. I can express what I otherwise can’t in my position and maintain some kind of sentience beyond why I came to be.”

“Freedom,” Erzsebet interrupted. “It frees you.”

“That’s not a word I should throw around to discuss my situation, is it? At least, it would be wise not to do so in your company,” the young master responded solemnly. “But there is merit in such a description.”

“Diplomat or soldier, when has any nation not felt forced to forget their humanity for the sake of their work?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but it does bother me to forget, seeing that I would not have come to exist without people. The same as music. The same as art. The same as you.”

The servant noticed a softness in those deep, blue eyes, swirling around with few places to escape, and she feared every time she would look in them afterward she would never be able to forget it. Despite his faults, despite his pride, despite his ambitions, therein lied a genuinely sensitive soul trapped in a position and a life he shouldn’t have been able to handle. If one could call what he did handling his situation.

And she wasn’t so naïve as to not understand why he’d felt a need to hide this from the world. If an enemy really knew how to manipulate his frame of mind to their advantage, it could destroy him, and may the heavens be merciful to a nation who lost their humanity. In an instant, she understood the weight of their exchange and wondered if perhaps he regretted it.

Within that moment, she felt it important to assuage any of his doubts.

Upon taking a breath and feeling the weight of her title, she spoke gently. “It bothers me, too. And… I could probably stand to try remembering it every now and then… Would you mind if I… if I came in to listen while you play?”

“And be in the presence of someone else who appreciates it? You are more than welcome.”


	3. Social Creatures Communicate

To feel human. It was a strange fantasy to cherish and romanticize, but it was what had given her a drive to push forward when life would be fraught with difficulties. And her life rarely seemed to not be fraught with difficulty. However, she could indulge herself in that simple fantasy on days like this. Days where she could claim her personhood and say she had her own life outside of diplomacy and outside of warfare and defense.

She was no longer a prisoner.

She no longer had to live in stealth.

She could take a break from fighting, even if she had no idea how long it would last.

For someone who had lived centuries, she could indulge herself and retain her hope for humanity in those few moments remembering her own, and at no point in the past couple of centuries had she felt so free.

Completely entranced in this composition, she questioned opening her eyes to absorb as much of the moment as she could, though she worried her vision would blur.

She wasn’t mistaken for having such worries. Her eyes blurred quickly as she opened them to see Roderich staring back at her with those soulful eyes as he played on. Though he appeared more weathered and wearier than when she had first noticed his softness, the warmth he shared in that gaze had become much easier to reach. In moments like this, where she was too stunned to speak and at risk of ebbing tears, she could almost imagine how it felt to simply be a woman in love.

Upon sustaining the final chords, Roderich turned to face her and tried desperately not to laugh at her weepy smile. Somewhat obliviously and blinded by his preoccupation with it being juvenile compared to what he knew he could play, the question left him.

“What do you think of it?”

“It’s wonderful,” she exhaled. “For a moment I almost believed that-” she laughed to calm her nerves. “It’s… it’s human.”

And now Roderich threatened to tear up with that gentle smile. “It’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“I thought you had maybe caught on to it, but you should know I wrote this piece for you, with you in mind. In those moments where I thought the world would be ending and I feared never seeing you again. I suppose nothing makes you truly understand your humanity than when death is not so temporary… Is its point clear to you?”

“You love me?”

“Well, _obviously_ , but there’s _more_ than that. Erzi… you make me feel human, too. Human enough to create something of my own. Human enough to want menial things out of life. Human enough to not want to be alone.”

All Erzsebet could think to do was to skootch onto that piano bench and hold him tightly. Later on they could work out the logistics of their negotiations moving forward and work through their traumas, but it seemed the man trapped all those years ago was through with hiding from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End


End file.
